Chapter VI: Part 6

Now, Mr. Mayor, I need not tell you that there never was a greater mistake in point of fact. A thirst for books, which he spared no pains to allay, is the first marked trait disclosed in the character of Franklin; his success throughout the early period of his life can be directly traced to the use he made of them; and his very first important movement for the benefit of his fellow-men was to found a public library, which still flourishes;--one of the most considerable in the country. Franklin not a book-man! whoever labors under that delusion, shows that somebody else is not a book-man, at least so far as concerns the biography of our illustrious townsman. We happen to have a little information on that subject, in a book written by Franklin himself. He there gives a very different account of himself, and I would ask any one who entertains the idea to which I am alluding, at what period of Franklin's career he supposes this taste for books began to be manifested by him; how soon he ceased to be a self-formed man? Perhaps after he had struggled through the years of his youthful poverty, escaped to Philadelphia, set up in business as a printer, and begun to have a little money in his pocket. I need not tell you, sir, that it was earlier than that. Was it, then, while he was the clever apprentice to his brother, the editor of a journal, and wrote articles for its columns in a disguised hand, and tucked them under the office door, enjoying the exquisite delight of being ordered to set up his own anonymous articles; was it then, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, that this fondness for reading, under the stimulus of boyish authorship, disclosed itself? Earlier than that. Well, then, at the grammar-school and Master Brownwell's writing-school, which he attended from eight to ten (for there are boys who show a fondness for reading, even at that tender age); was little Benjamin's taste for books developed while yet at school? Earlier than that. Hear his own words, which you will permit me to read from that exquisite piece of autobiography to which I have already alluded: "From my INFANCY I was _passionately_ fond of reading, and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in purchasing books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan's works, in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's _Historical Collections_. They were small chapman's books and cheap, forty volumes in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I have often regretted [and this is a sentence that might be inscribed on the lofty cornice of this noble hall] that at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way.... There was among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of Defoe's, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of Dr. Mather's, called an _Essay to do Good_, which"--did what, sir? For I am now going to give you, in Franklin's own words (they carry with them the justification of every dollar expended in raising these walls), the original secret of his illustrious career--what was the effect produced by reading these two little books of Defoe and Cotton Mather? "they perhaps gave me a turn of thinking, which had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life." Yes, sir, in the reading of those books was the acorn that sprouted into that magnificent oak; there was the fountain-drop which a fairy might have sipped from a buttercup, from which has flowed the Missouri and the Mississippi,--the broad, deep river of Franklin's fame, winding its way through the lapse of ages, and destined to flow on, till it shall be ingulfed in the ocean of eternity.

From his "infancy," sir, "passionately fond of reading," nay, with the appetite of a vulture, with the digestion of an ostrich, attacking the great folios of polemic divinity in his father's library. Not a dull boy, either; not a precocious little bookworm; fond of play; doesn't dislike a little mischief; sometimes, as he tells us, "led the other boys into scrapes;" but in his intervals of play, in his leisure moments, up in the lonely garret when the rest of the family were asleep, holding converse in his childhood with the grave old non-conformists, Howe and Owen and Flavel and Baxter,--communing with the austerest lords of thought; the demigods of puritanism.

Franklin not a book-man? Why, he goes on to tell us that it was "this bookish inclination which at length determined his father to make him a printer," against his own inclination, which was for the sea; and when he had thus by constraint become a printer, his great consolation was, as he says, that "I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my chamber reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and was to be returned in the morning, lest it should be found missing."

Then he made the acquaintance of Mr. Matthew Adams, an ingenious, sensible man, "who had a pretty collection of books." He frequented the printing-office, took notice of the bright little apprentice, and "very kindly proposed to lend me such books as I chose to read." Having taken to a vegetable diet at the age of sixteen, he persuaded his brother to allow him in cash half the price of his board,--lived upon potatoes and hasty pudding,--soon found that he could save half even of that little allowance (which could not have exceeded two-and-six-pence a week, lawful money), and this poor little economy "was an additional fund for buying books." What would the poor, underfed boy, who was glad to buy books on the savings of his potato diet, have said could he have had free access to a hall like this, stored as it soon will be with its priceless treasures?

Further, sir, while working as a journeyman in England, he says, "I made the acquaintance of one William Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand books."--(Somewhat, I suppose, like our friend Burnham, in Cornhill.)--"Circulating libraries were not then in use, but we agreed that on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of his works. This I esteemed a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could."

Finally, sir, as I have already said, Franklin's first important movement for the good of his fellow-men was the foundation of the public library in Philadelphia. At his instance, the members of a little club to which he belonged, tradesmen and mechanics of narrow means, threw into common stock the few books which belonged to them. A subscription was then obtained from fifty young men, principally tradesmen, of two pounds each, and ten shillings _per annum_, and with this little fund they began. "The books were imported, the library was opened one day in the week for lending them to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned." "This was the mother," says Franklin, "of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It has become a great thing itself, and continually goes on increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and, perhaps, have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges."

Those are the words of Franklin, Mr. Mayor, which I read from his own book. Our excellent friend the President of the Commissioners (Hon. R.C. Winthrop) has justly felicitated himself on having been the first person publicly to raise his voice in this noble hall. He must be a happier man than I who can speak an earlier or an abler word than his on any occasion; but I claim the credit of having read from the first book opened in this hall;--and what is more, sir, I mean to have the satisfaction of presenting the first volume given to the library, since this building came into the care of the Trustees. In your presence, Mr. Mayor, and that of this vast assembly on this first of January, 1858, I offer this copy of Franklin's Autobiography in Sparks's edition, as a New Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. Nay, sir, I am going to do more, and make the first, and perhaps the last, motion ever made in this hall; and that is, that every person present, of his own accord, if of age,--with the consent of parent or guardian, if a minor,--man, woman, boy, or girl, be requested, on going home, to select one good book, and in memory of the poor boy, who half-fed himself to gratify his taste for reading, present it as a New-Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. I make you that motion, Mr. Mayor, and I call upon all present to give me their voices: especially I ask the cooperation of the fairer and better part of creation. If nowhere else, woman's rights shall be respected in this hall, while I have anything to do with it. I pray you, Mr. Mayor, put the question, and then I'll finish my speech.

His Honor the Mayor then rose and stated the question, which
was seconded by Mr. Winthrop. The mayor particularly called
on the ladies to vote, and a unanimous and emphatic aye
resounded through the vast hall. The negative was then
called and no response made. His Honor, amidst great
cheering and laughter, pronounced it a unanimous vote. Mr.
Everett resumed--

No, sir, if there is one lesson more than another directly deducible from the life of Franklin, it is the close connection of a thoroughly practical and useful life and career with books, libraries, and reading. If there is a thing on earth which would have gladdened his heart could he have anticipated it, it would be the knowledge that his native city, in two generations after his death, would found a library like this, to give to the rising generation and to the lovers of knowledge of every age that access to books, of which he so much felt the want. And could it be granted to him, even now, to return to his native city, which dwelt in his affections to the close of his life, his first visit would be to the centre of the ancient burial-ground, where in after-life he dutifully placed a marble slab on the graves of his parents; his second visit would be to the spot in Milk street where he was born; his third to the corner of Union street and Hanover street, where he passed his childhood, in a house still standing; his fourth visit would be to the site of the free grammar school-house, where, as he says in his will, he received "his first instruction in literature," and which is now adorned with a statue which a grateful posterity has dedicated to his memory; and his last and longest would be to this noble hall, where you are making provision for an ample supply of that reading of which, "from his _infancy_ he was _passionately_ fond." The trustees have done what they could to connect some reference to Franklin with an institution which would have been the object of his warmest affections, by providing that every Franklin medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and inasmuch as the accumulating fund which he bequeathed to the city, and which now exceeds seventy thousand dollars, has proved almost wholly unavailing for the primary object of the bequest, it deserves consideration whether, when it has reached a sufficient magnitude, as it will before the end of this century, the interest of the fund, if it can be legally done, might not advantageously be appropriated, as a permanent endowment for the support of the library.

I have not proposed at this time, sir, on the part of the trustees, to make a formal speech; I have preferred to let Benjamin Franklin speak for us. This day belongs of right to the commissioners for building the library, ably represented as they are, by our distinguished friend their president, who has done such ample justice to the subject; and to you, Mr. Mayor, as the organ of the city government, whom I cannot but congratulate on closing your official career,--in all respects so honorable to yourself and so acceptable to your fellow-citizens,--by an act, I am sure, most grateful to your own feelings and most auspicious of the public good. It is not yet the time for the trustees to speak. A more fitting opportunity may hereafter present itself, when the books shall be placed on the shelves, the catalogue printed, and the library opened for public use. Occasion may then, perhaps, with propriety be taken, to illustrate the importance and utility of such an institution; to do justice to the liberality on the part of the city government and the individual benefactors by which it has been founded, endowed, and sustained; and especially to the generosity of our greatest benefactor and esteemed fellow-countryman, Mr. Bates, whose letters announcing his first munificent donation of fifty thousand dollars, alluding to his own early want of access to books, assign that as the moving cause which prompted his liberality. It will be the pleasing duty of those who may then be intrusted with the administration of the library, to pay a fitting tribute to so much public and private bounty.

In the mean time, sir, we must throw ourselves on the patience and considerateness of the city council and the community. Not much short of sixty thousand volumes are to be brought together from four different places of temporary deposit, and assigned to their final resting-places in this hall and the circulating library below. Here they are to be arranged on the shelves, the cards and slips which pertain to them, far more numerous than the volumes themselves, reduced to alphabetical order; a separate catalogue of each alcove prepared; and a comprehensive catalogue of the whole collection, without which it will be little better than an unmanageable mass, prepared and printed. Every thing which could be done beforehand, has been anticipated; but much of the work was of necessity reserved till the books should be placed on the shelves. In the interval, and while this labor is going on, the library in Mason street will be left in possession of the books most in request for daily circulation, and will be closed at last only when it becomes absolutely necessary that they also should be removed to the new building.

But it is time for me to conclude. The shades of evening are falling around us; those cressets which lend us their mild and tasteful illumination will soon be extinguished; and the first day of the New-Year, rich in the happy prospects we now inaugurate, will come to a close. May the blessing of Heaven give effect to its brightest anticipations. A few more days,--a few more years,--will follow their appointed round, and we, who now exchange our congratulations on this magnificent New-Year's gift of our city fathers, shall have passed from the scene; but firm in the faith that the growth of knowledge is the growth of sound principles and pure morals, let us not doubt, that, by the liberality of the city government and of our generous benefactors at home and abroad, a light will be kindled and go forth from these walls, now dedicated to the use of the FREE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, which will guide our children and our children's children in the path of intelligence and virtue, till the sun himself shall fall from the heavens.

THE NEW YORK FREE CIRCULATING LIBRARY

ADDRESS IN ITS FAVOR AT A PUBLIC MEETING

President Cleveland made this address on March 6, 1890,
while a resident of New York City in the interval between
his two presidential terms, at a meeting, at Chickering
Hall, called for the purpose of directing attention to the
work of the struggling Free Circulating Library and if
possible to raise funds for its support, which was only
partially insured by the City. Owing to increase in both
public and private contributions this library was enabled to
make rapid growth in the years immediately following until
in 1901, when it was merged in the Circulation Department of
the New York Public Library, it was operating eleven
branches with a circulation of over 600,000. This
institution was the pioneer of the popular, as distinguished
from the scholarly, library idea in New York.

[Stephen] Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J.,
March 18, 1837, the fifth son of a Presbyterian clergyman.
He received a common-school education and after his father's
death went in 1855 to live with an uncle in Buffalo, N.Y. He
was admitted to the bar there in 1859, was assistant
district attorney in 1863-66, sheriff in 1871-74 and mayor
in 1882. In the latter year he was elected Governor of New
York and in 1884 President of the United States. He was an
unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1888, but was
elected again in 1892. He died in Princeton, N.J., where he
had resided since his last presidential term, on June 24,
1908.

The words I shall speak on this occasion I intend rather as a pledge of my adherance to the cause in which you are enlisted than an attempt to say anything new or instructive. I gladly join with the enthusiasm of a new convert in the felicitations of those who have done noble and effective work in the establishment and maintenance in our city of a free circulating library, and it seems to me they have abundant cause for congratulation in review of the good which has already been accomplished through their efforts and in the contemplation of the further usefulness which awaits their continued endeavor.

In every enlightened country the value of popular education is fully recognized, not only as a direct benefit to its recipients, but as an element of strength and safety in organized society. Considered in these aspects it should nowhere be better appreciated than in this land of free institutions consecrated to the welfare and happiness of its citizens, and deriving its sanction and its power from the people. Here the character of the people is inevitably impressed upon the government, and here our public life can no more be higher and purer than the life of the people, than a stream can rise above its fountain or be purer than the spring in which it has its source.

That we have not failed to realize these conditions is demonstrated by the establishment of free public schools on every side, where children are not only invited but often obliged to submit themselves to such instruction as will better their situation in life and fit them to take part intelligently in the conduct of the government.

Thus, in our schools the young are taught to read, and in this manner the seed is sown, from which we expect a profitable return to the state, when its beneficiaries shall repay the educational advances made to them by an intelligent and patriotic performance of their social and political duties.

And yet if we are to create good citizenship, which is the object of popular education, and if we are to insure to the country the full benefit of public instruction, we can by no means consider the work as completely done in the schoolroom. While the young gathered there are fitting themselves to assume in the future their political obligations, there are others upon whom these obligations already rest, and who now have the welfare and safety of the country in their keeping. Our work is badly done if these are neglected. They have passed the school age, and have perhaps availed themselves of free instruction; but they, as well as those still in the school, should, nevertheless, have within their reach the means of further mental improvement and the opportunity of gaining that additional knowledge and information which can only be secured by access to useful and instructive books.

The husbandman who expects to gain a profitable return from his orchards, not only carefully tends and cultivates the young trees in his nurseries as they grow to maturity but he generously enriches and cares for those in bearing and upon which he must rely for ripened fruit.

Teaching the children of our land to read is but the first step in the scheme of creating good citizens by means of free instruction. We teach the young to read so that both as children and as men and women they may read. Our teaching must lead to the habit and the desire of reading to be useful; and only as this result is reached can the work in our free schools be logically supplemented and made valuable.

Therefore, the same wise policy and intent which open the doors of our free schools to our young, also suggest the completion of the plan thus entered upon by placing books in the hands of those who in our schools have been taught to read.

A man or woman who never reads and is abandoned to unthinking torpor, or who allows the entire mental life to be bounded by the narrow lines of the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape a condition of barrenness of mind, which not only causes the decay of individual contentment and happiness, but which fails to yield to the state its justly expected return of usefulness in valuable service and wholesome political action.

Another branch of this question should not be overlooked. It is not only of great importance that our youth and our men and women should have the ability, the desire, and the opportunity to read, but the kind of books they read is no less important. Without guidance and without the invitation and encouragement to read publications which will improve as well as interest, there is danger that our people will have in their hands books whose influence and tendency are of a negative sort, if not positively bad and mischievous. Like other good things, the ability and opportunity to read may be so used as to defeat their beneficient purposes.

The boy who greedily devours the vicious tales of imaginary daring and blood-curdling adventure which in these days are far too accessible to the young will have his brain filled with notions of life and standards of manliness which, if they do not make him a menace to peace and good order, will certainly not tend to make him a useful member of society.

The man who devotes himself to the flash literature now much too common will, instead of increasing his value as a citizen, almost surely degenerate in his ideas of public duty and grow dull in appreciation of the obligations he owes his country.

In both these cases there will be a loss to the state. There is danger also that a positive and aggressive injury to the community will result, and such readers will certainly suffer deprivation to the happiness and contentment which are the fruits of improving study and well-regulated thought.

So, too, the young woman who seeks recreation and entertainment in reading silly and frivolous books, often of doubtful moral tendency, is herself in the way of becoming frivolous and silly, if not of weak morality. If she escapes this latter condition, she is certain to become utterly unfitted to bear patiently the burden of self-support or to assume the sacred duties of wife and mother.

Contemplating these truths, no one can doubt the importance of securing for those who read, as far as it is in our power, facilities for the study and reading of such books as will instruct and innocently entertain, and which will at the same time improve and correct the tastes and habits.

There is another thought somewhat in advance of those already suggested, which should not pass unnoticed.

As an outgrowth of the inventive and progressive spirit of our people, we have among us legions of men, and women, too, who restlessly desire to increase their knowledge of the new forces and agencies which at this time are being constantly dragged from their lurking-places and subjected to the use of man. Those earnest inquirers should all be given a chance and have put within their reach such books as will guide and inspire their efforts. If by this means the country shall gain to itself a new inventor or be the patron of endeavor which shall add new elements to the sum of human happiness and comfort, its intervention will be well repaid.

These considerations, and the fact that many among us having the ability and inclination to read are unable to furnish themselves with profitable and wholesome books amply justify the beneficient mission of our Free Circulating Library. Its plan and operation, so exactly adjusted to meet a situation which cannot safely be ignored and to wants which ought not to be neglected, establish its claim upon the encouragement and reasonable aid of the public authorities and commend it most fully to the support and generosity of private benefaction.

The development which this good work has already reached in our city has exhibited the broad field yet remaining untouched and the inadequacy of present operations. It has brought to view also instances of noble individual philanthropy and disinterested private effort and contribution.

But it certainly seems that the time and money directed towards this object are confined to a circle of persons far too narrow, and that the public encouragement and aid have been greatly disproportioned to private endeavor.

The city of New York has never shown herself willing to be behind other cities in such work as is done by our Free Circulating Library, and while her people are much engrossed in business activity and enterprise they have never yet turned away from a cause once demonstrated to them to be so worthy and useful as this.

The demonstration is at hand. Let it be pressed upon our fellow citizens, and let them be shown the practical operation of the project you have in hand and the good it has accomplished, and the further good of which it is capable through their increased liberality, and it will be strange if they fail to respond generously to your appeal to put the city of New York in the front rank of the cities which have recognized the usefulness of the free circulating libraries.

THE WADSWORTH ATHENAEUM

ADDRESSES AT THE OPENING OF ITS LIBRARY IN HARTFORD, CONN., JAN. 2, 1893.

These addresses, by Charles Dudley Warner and Charles H.
Clark, are reprinted from brief abstracts given in _The
Library Journal_ of January, 1893.

Charles Dudley Warner was born in Plainfield, Mass., Sept.
12, 1829 and graduated at Hamilton College in 1851. He
practised law in Chicago in 1856-60 and in 1861 became
managing editor of the Hartford, Conn., _Press_. In 1867 on
its consolidation with the _Courant_, he became co-editor.
He was made associate editor of _Harper's Magazine_ in 1884,
and died at Hartford, Oct. 20, 1900. He was widely popular
as an essayist, first gaining favorable notice by his "My
Summer in a Garden."

This building and its contents are contributory to the excellence and enjoyment of life exactly as Bushnall Park is--not merely that it is a place of rest and recreation, but it is a training in beauty, in the appreciation of nobleness, and in the public and private refinement. Culture is a plant of rather slow growth. I suppose there never was such a change wrought, almost instantaneously, in a people as was wrought in the American people by the opening and exhibition of the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876. Its effect was at once apparent everywhere. But knowledge precedes culture, culture being, after all, but another name for educational taste.

Now this institution is simply a means for the culture of the city of Hartford, in all ways, because literature and art--not taken externally, but absorbed as a part of our lives, not only of knowledge, but of experience--are the things that make life worth living.

No one can speak too highly of the offices of a great library. It was one of our great essayists, you remember, who said that the monastery--speaking of it with reference to its books--was the ark that floated down over the tempest and darkness of the middle ages, in order to carry classic learning to the fifteenth century. They were repositories of learning. That is the old idea. And for a long time--almost to our day--that was the notion of the library. It was a place to put something away. It was not even like a market for the sale of provisions or eggs; indeed, if they were eggs the librarians thought it their duty to sit on them, with the idea that they might hatch out other books. That was a noble thing to do. But much better than that is to scatter these books abroad among the people, so that we shall not have reproduction--an egg for an egg--but that these books will so revivify the life that we shall have books new, that express the actual conditions and that appeal to the human life as it is. This is the modern idea of the library. This great collection, which is not to be secluded, is to be carried and even forced upon the people, so that it shall enter into and become a part of their daily lives.

You remember, perhaps, what Milton says about the books, in that noblest of noble defences of unlicensed printing, that "they are not dead things. As good almost," he says, "kill a man as you kill a good book. Who kills a man, kills a reasonable being, made in God's image. Who destroys a good book destroys reason itself, kills the image of God as it were, in the eye. Many a man," he goes on to say, "lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life; so that if we slay a good book we would slay immortality rather than a life."

Charles Hopkins Clark, who immediately followed Mr. Warner,
was at this time editor in chief of _The Hartford Courant_,
of which Mr. Warner was co-editor. Mr. Clark was born in
Hartford April 1, 1848, graduated at Yale, and joined the
_Courant_ staff in 1871, becoming editor in 1890.

One of the earliest sins of my youth, or rather one of the earliest that is burnt into my memory, was committed in the library of what was then the Young Men's Institute. I spoke out loud! The rebuke that I received sent me down the stairs overwhelmed with a sense of the enormity of my crime, yet more than sustained by joy to think that I had escaped the utter annihilation with which my reprimand was freighted. And I can say that the awe with which I used to enter that chamber of silence, and the fear with which I regarded the librarian were the common property of all the young people of that somewhat remote period. But long since we found out that the old librarian was one of the gentlest and most inoffensive men, and that we had misunderstood him as completely as he had misunderstood us.

But I have no such gloomy recollection, nor to be honest, have I any recollection at all of the Wadsworth Athenaeum gallery, because, like everybody else who then lived in Hartford, I never went in there. The door was often open and the only sentinel on guard had no more formidable weapon than a pair of knitting-needles. But no one ever crossed that threshold. The simple legend, traced on a placard at the door, "Admission Ten Cents," did the business, or rather, to be more elegant as well as accurate, prevented any business being done. The people who came up the stone steps read the notice and turned off to the left to the library or to the right to the Historical Society, where entrance was free. I say free, but freedom must have its limits if we are to have safety, so the tin sign on the outside of the door gave notice to the always unwelcome boy that he could not go in until he reached the mature age of twelve years. That was one of the things that I wanted to grow to full manhood for.

And I well remember my first visit there. As I walked slowly up the stairs I wondered what venerable monument of patriotic achievement, what new inspiration to love for our noble State whose history is such a priceless treasure, what vision of heroic self-sacrifice in her behalf would first burst upon my eager eyes when I should look around the hall. I looked and lo! there in a glass jar stood the chaste but familiar figure of Charles Hosmer's night-blooming cereus--the modest pioneer of the canned-fruit industry in this community.

I have made this brief review in order to suggest to you the state of innocuous desuetude in which for more or less time the various miscalled interests in this building had been lying for lack of any interest at all. The library had a limited and dwindling clientage. The Athenaeum was deserted. The Historical Society, with no funds and few friends, was exhibiting a collection of animal, vegetable, and mineral curiosities, while its real treasures of history and truth were by lock and key shut off from the very public for whom they were collected and preserved. Look at that picture, then look at this which greets us here to day.

In these elegant and spacious buildings the whole public of Hartford is welcome, without money and without price. The circulating library will furnish every home with books, and Miss Hewins, who has devoted her life to this town, is always ready to help the younger readers. The Library of Reference, monument alike to Mr. Watkinson's liberality and Dr. Trumbull's rare judgment and life-long devoted service as a librarian, offers free to all students the authorities on every branch of knowledge. The Historical Society, with improved facilities, has been able to adopt a more liberal policy, and is widening its claim upon public interest, and so increasing its usefulness, and, thanks largely to the women of Hartford, the Art Gallery and Art School are ready to spread their refining and wholesome influence all through this community.

LIBRARIES AS LEAVEN

This address was delivered at the inauguration of the Free
Public Library, Madison, Wis., by Prof. James D. Butler.

James Davie Butler was born in Rutland, Vt., March 15, 1815,
and was graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 1836. He
entered the Congregational ministry, and held the chairs of
ancient languages in Wabash College, 1854-58 and the
University of Wisconsin, 1858-67, after which he devoted
himself to lecturing and writing until his death in Madison
in 1905.

My subject is "Libraries as Leaven," or the relation of libraries to the increased diffusion of knowledge.

What is a Library? It is the knowledge of all brought within the reach of each one. It is an expanded encyclopaedia, or the books which are, or ought to be, consulted in compiling a perfect encyclopaedia.

Human knowledge--and hence the books in which it is treasured up--is divided by some authors into forty departments. I have their names here all written down--but I dare not read them. You would give no more quarter to such a catalogue than the lover gave to the mercantile inventory of his sweetheart's charms, when itemized as "two lips indifferent red," "two gray eyes with lids to them," and so on.

But all these forty classes of knowledge ought to be represented in a library, and the more largely the better. They should also mingle there in due proportion, "parts into parts reciprocally shot, and all so forming a harmonious whole." "If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?"

I once lived in a town of a thousand families, where, through a legacy, one copy of some single author was annually presented to each family. But, with the same money, a thousand different works might have been every year purchased, and all kept accessible by all the families. The result would have been a feast as appetizing to all palates as the miraculous manna which the rabbins tell us tasted to each Jew like that particular dainty which he loved best.

It is no objection to a library that no man will ever read it through. No man will read through his dictionary, and time is not long enough for a man to read all the words in the daily _Tribune_. Nor will any customer exhaust a store. Yet he demands an assortment from which to select the little that he needs. In every library most authors, bound up in congenial calf, sleep soundly in their own sheets. Yet the dust of dead men's bones, at the touch of genius, comes forth in a new life. How much that is best in Macaulay and in Buckle is extracted from bibliothecal rubbish--or reading which had never been read. Hence even Samson could not say to the jaw-bone of an ass: "I have no need of you." The wise thank God for fools. They get their living out of them, and mostly out of the greatest fools. In truth, no library is large enough. Guizot and Michelet complain of inability to consult certain books, even in that Parisian library, where books are as plenty as water in the deluge, and the shelves would reach from here to Milwaukee.

A library should be a cosmos; but it is a chaos till arrangement, catalogues and librarians bring us at once the volume we desire, and which, without them, would be as hard to fish up as the Atlantic cable lost in mid-ocean.

"Thus warlike arms in magazines we place,
All ranged in order and disposed with grace:
Not thus alone the curious eye to please,
But to be _found_, when need requires, with ease."

In some libraries, however, books are arranged on a system which seems borrowed from Spanish hospitals, where patients are arranged according to religious creeds, rather than bodily complaints. Every library has more volumes than I can master; but no library though it be the conflux of all civilizations, has so many volumes as I may need to consult.

Chief Justice Story used to assert that no American could test the accuracy of Gibbon without crossing the Atlantic. Such an assertion would now, perhaps, be extravagant, yet many of Gibbon's references are still hard to trace in America. One instance may be worth notice. Our approaching national centenary leads us to curiosity in reference to the secular feasts of the Romans. In Gibbon's account of the most famous among them, a thousand years from the founding of Rome, the main authority quoted is Zosimus. But the history of Zosimus you will seek in vain throughout Madison libraries. You will not find his name in the public collections of Chicago, or Cincinnati, or St. Louis, or San Francisco. It is unlikely that any single copy of Zosimus has yet penetrated west of our Atlantic slope.

But how dare I thus speak about Zosimus? How is it possible for me to know whether his history can, or cannot, be discovered, either on the Pacific shore, or in the Mississippi valley? I know it, thanks to the Library of Our Historical Society, and specifically to its goodly array of bibliothecal catalogues.

Why will not our Centenary Women's Club buy our Free Library a Zosimus?

Free libraries, especially those maintained by public taxation, were scarcely known before the last half of the nineteenth century. If in an antiquarian mood, I could indeed bring forth curious details concerning half a hundred in continental Europe, some of them running back several centuries, but I forbear. The earliest British library law, similar to ours in Wisconsin, dates from 1850. The earliest in Massachusetts--and I suppose in America--was approved May 24, 1851. The first library opened in consequence of this law was in New Bedford, March 3, 1853. The grandest triumph under the Massachusetts law is in Boston. The free library there stands to-day surpassed in volumes by only three or four American libraries--say the Astor, Congress, and Harvard--while in arrangement, architecture, and equipment it is pronounced by the most enlightened foreigners unsurpassed by any library in the world.

Our legislature in 1872 empowered the mayors and councils in towns and cities to lay an annual tax of one mill on a dollar of the assessed valuation, for establishing and maintaining free libraries. This law will bear good fruit. Yet it is a step backward from the act of 1859. That act created a library fund by setting apart for that purpose one-tenth of the school-fund income, and imposing a tax of one-tenth of a mill on all property. The sum of $88,784.78 had been thus accumulated when the war of 1861 broke out,--and the money was used for military purposes. It ought to be refunded by the State, or United States, and expended for its original object. The great superiority of the law of 1859 lies in its extending to rural districts,--and so leaving no hamlet unvisited--while the maxim of the present law is, "Coals to Newcastle, owls to Athens, apples to Alcinous. He that hath--to him shall be given." It gives a library to Madison, where 40,000 volumes were already within reach, but nothing at all to five and twenty other places in Dane County, whose need of books is ten times greater. But libraries bring forth after their kind, and free libraries, we may hope, will become co-extensive with free schools.

Madison, to-day, in opening to all her sons and daughters a Free Library, has outstripped every other municipality in the State. It is a noble preeminence, and will do her honor to the end of the world.

The Madison Free Library, it may be reasonably hoped, will approximate to the bibliothecal ideal. It starts with an inheritance of 3,308 volumes, accumulated during a score of years by the Madison Institute. Its revenue is considerable, and it will grow in even pace with the growth of the city. Nothing but Adam and Minerva was ever born of full stature. The tax now assessed for it would impoverish no man till after the lapse of thrice three thousand years. It was limited to less than a third of what the law allows because we make the entering edge of a wedge thin, and would learn wisdom from Satan who never makes his temptations so bad at the beginning as at the end. Is is only the first step that costs. The Free Library will be ready for windfalls, and so surely as history repeats itself, they will pour cornucopias into its lap. Of the million volumes in the British Museum, two out of every five were gifts. No wonder. Book-gatherers abhor the breaking up of their collections as we do the dissolution of the Union, or as abolitionists did the snapping of family ties by slave-traders. Lest what they have joined together shall be put asunder, they rejoice to lay up their treasures in an institution which shall never die. Accordingly, in tracing the origin of one hundred and eighty libraries in continental Europe, it has been discovered that all of them, except sixteen, were presented to the municipalities by book-lovers.

Experience this side the Atlantic is thus far equally encouraging. I will notice a single specimen. The Boston Free Library is mainly contributed by individuals. One thousand volumes were given by Everett; 2,300 by Bowditch; 11,360 by Theodore Parker; 26,000 by Joshua Bates; 11,899 by the Old South Church, and those of greater rarity than any other equal number of volumes. Then Ticknor and Prescott bestowed the best Spanish library ever gathered by private men, and Wheelwright one scarcely inferior, relating to South America. Of pecuniary benefactions, I will only mention $10,000 from Lawrence, $30,000 from Phillips, and $50,000 from Bates. But legacies to the Free Library have become so common that we may confidently expect that, if any Bostonian shall die and bequeath it nothing, the courts will decide the neglect of the Library to be conclusive proof of insanity, and so will nullify his will! On the whole, we cannot be too sanguine concerning the prospective progress of our book-feast for the million.

But a library, however perfect, and though freely open to all the world, may be a light shining in a darkness which comprehendeth it not. Many years ago, I was a student in such a library at Rome. It was larger than any one in America at that time, and offered the best of all its stores daily to everybody, and that without charge. Yet it was well-nigh a solitude. The reason was obvious. My walk thither was through a gauntlet of beggar-boys, and I once took with me an Italian primer, and cried out that I would give something to any boy who could read. I held it up before nineteen in succession, but no one could spell out a line. They had eschewed not only writing as tempting to forgery, but reading also as a black art. Had they been giants they could,--like the barbarians who sacked Rome,--ruin, but not relish, the nectared sweets of books. To them the collective wisdom of the world was as sunshine to the blind, or as smoke in the nursery riddle,--"roomful, houseful, can't catch a handful!"

"Or like gospel pearls which pigs neglect
When pigs have that opportunity."

But in regard to _our_ Free Library, I have better hopes, and beg your leave to show _what use_, in my judgment, will be made of it. It will be resorted to for _amusement_. Some will flit through it in the spirit of the Viennese, who turn their central cathedral into a thoroughfare on promenades and business walks. But such visitors will learn something in glancing at the backs of books. Books, as well as men, have a physiognomy. Here, as elsewhere, the admirers of Shakespeare will take out his plays, return them with the leaves uncut, and then insist that booksellers be instructed if Mr. Shakespeare writes any new book, to forward it without further orders. Many will have no eyes except for the volumes of _fiction_, and sometimes will rather run through these than read them. Novels are a sort of cake, which, if eaten alone, is prone to make mental dyspeptics. Yet most novel-readers will gain some profit from our library. Some of them will here acquire a facility in reading which for lack of practice has hitherto been unknown to them. No one has really learned to read, until he has read to learn. Their interest in stories will beguile the toil of becoming _ready_ readers, and their range of reading will naturally widen. But if it does not, they may learn much. Every good fiction is _true_, if not to particular fact yet to general principles, to natural scenery, to human nature, to the ways of human life, manners, customs, the very age and body of the time. Even Tom Moore declares that "his chief work of fiction is founded on a long and labourious collection of facts." Again, when worn out by work, when care-crazed, and nerves are unstrung, who has not found in fiction--the balm of hurt minds--a recreation, a city of refuge, a restorative.

"Cups that cheer but not inebriate?"

In this way our free library will be a new pleasure, and the founder of it deserves the reward offered by the Sicilian tyrant, for such an invention. Work was never so monotonous as now; accordingly, play ought to be more than ever amusing. The Kilkenny cats, who devoured each other all but the tails, left one orphan kitten which began to eat up itself, but catching sight of a mouse was diverted from suicide. There is among us more than one disconsolate kitten now destroying himself, who will in our free feast of fiction espy a mouse which will reconcile him to life, and save him from himself. The rationale of this solace is indicated after a forcible, though rather a homely fashion, in the Chinese saying: "A dog chasing game does not mind the fleas which he _barks_ at while he lies in his kennel." "The labour we delight in physics pain."

Again, in all great works of fiction the purpose is, while not o'erstepping the modesty of nature, to show virtue her own feature, and scorn her own image. Who can count the admirers of Scott and Dickens that have learned from their portraitures moral lessons so well as never to forget them;--to loathe the mean and aspire to the noble;--to shun evil and cleave to good--in spite of temptations to one and from the other?

But, after all, our book-treasury will only now and then bestow its best gifts on those who resort to it merely for pleasure. To most visitors of this class it must remain no more than a telescope to a child, something to play with rather than to look through. Accordingly, they no more exhaust the capacities of books than the Irish made full proof of potatoes while they cooked only the balls and left the tubers to rot in the ground.

But the Free Library will be resorted to for _instruction_. Few will always hold the amusing button so close to their eyes that it will hide the instructive sun. From the start it will be superior to every private collection in the city, and its superiority will increase. Accordingly, professional men will come thither to inform themselves either each in his own specialty, or sallying on excursions from their home fields. Besides the time-honoured and traditional three professions, editors and teachers will be there, learning how to answer the hard questions of pupils and subscribers. Each of these professionals will more or less make known what he learns. The bibliothecal odor will be as plain upon them as a certain other odor is upon those who emerge from the smoking-car or saloon. "Dispensing native perfumes they whisper whence they stole those balmy spoils." But the bibliothecal leaven will leaven the community more _directly_.

God has set geniuses as great lights in the firmament to give light and delight as well on the earth. The circuit of such suns is unto the ends of the heaven, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. More and more pervasive is their influence, like the spring-time, which leaves no corner of the land untouched. In a library every man will recognize some supreme author transfiguring whatever he touches,--crystallizing into diamonds by wit, turning to gold with poetry, and glorifying as with tongues of angels by eloquence, and whom he hence worships as Scotchmen do Burns and as all the world does Shakespeare. Less and less do men entertain angels unawares, more and more are they ashamed to know the world's books only by name. Nobody now asks concerning Paradise Lost, "What does it prove?"